Participants will gain practical, up-to-date knowledge of Canadian income tax considerations when purchasing, selling, or transferring a privately held Canadian business, with emphasis on commercial factors, due diligence, valuation, and the roles of purchasers and vendors in share versus asset transactions. The course also reviews key rules, anti-avoidance measures, planning opportunities, and recent legislative and case-law developments, reinforced through scenario-based case studies.

• Practitioners, industry professionals, and owners or key executives of privately held Canadian businesses seeking advanced technical and practical tax knowledge related to purchase, sale, or succession.
• Tax professionals who want to deepen their understanding of transactional income tax issues and engage in practical discussions with an experienced practitioner.  

By the end of this course, participants should be able to: 

• Identify income-tax-related considerations for purchasers and vendors of Canadian private businesses while upholding ethical standards and professional independence. 
• Explain key tax concepts before, during, and after a transaction, including due diligence, structuring, and compliance obligations. 
• Evaluate the tax impacts of alternative structures (e.g., share vs. asset transactions) to participate effectively in negotiations for both buyers and sellers. 
• Apply recent legislative and interpretive developments to planning, advisory, and compliance work. 
• Recognize common risks, pitfalls, and opportunities for tax savings in acquisitions, sales, and succession planning. 

Topics include: 

• Commercial considerations: motivations to sell, valuation, due diligence, financing, and the role of tax professionals. 
• Comparative tax implications of share versus asset transactions, including acquisition of control and asset basis bump. 
• Capital gains treatment, capital gains deduction, rollovers, and anti-avoidance rules (e.g., sections 55 and 84.1). 
• Transactions involving non-residents and public corporations; allocation of purchase price and treatment of specific assets. 
• Intra-family and intergenerational transfers; related/affiliated and not-at-arm’s-length considerations. 
• Other issues: restrictive covenants, interest expense and EIFEL, vendor take-back financing, earnouts, employee share options, retiring allowances/IPPs, employee ownership trusts (EOTs), TOSI, and GST/PST. 
• Scenario-based case studies comparing structures and illustrating major concepts.  

Course Content Created: September 2025

Course Content Updated: August 2026

Presenter

About This Product

On-Demand Courses by CPA PRO are either video recordings from live seminars, or video recordings produced specifically for the on-demand audience. Where available, accompanying materials such as handouts or course notes are included.On-demand courses are eligible for verifiable CPD hours upon successful completion, and a certificate will be made available for download for your records.

Note that some courses comprise both formal instruction and self-directed exercises. In such cases, participants must complete both components to claim full CPD hours, or must reduce their reported CPD hours accordingly.

Please note that not all on-demand courses include downloadable materials such as course notes or slides.

How to get started

Upon completion of purchase, go to mylms.bccpa.ca and log in using your CPABC Online Services credentials. Click “Go to your Courses and Materials” to go to your Learning Center, then find and click on your course title.